


After Dark

by MessOfCurls



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Developing Relationship, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Late Night Conversations, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Roleplay Logs, Slashy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 05:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8275304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MessOfCurls/pseuds/MessOfCurls
Summary: Stuck in a mental institution, Elliot finds a little respite in the form of his nightly ritual. But Tyrell plans to change all that.





	

_Every day is the same._

_The scrips are seen by the pharmacists who give them to the nurse, who hands them to me. An orderly counts out the pills, marking them off against my chart then watches me gulp them down with half a cup of tepid water. They check under my tongue, in the paper cup once I’ve drained it, but they don’t find anything, because they don’t know to look for what I’ve got._

_No phones allowed. My computer privileges have been taken away, but there’s always a way. A work around. People get sloppy or too comfortable and if you know when and where to look you’ll find an opportunity. A fight between two patients, a phone left unattended at the nurse’s station and a few minutes of distraction was enough._

_One small change adds another pill to my daily scrip, while skipping the notes they check against. Each day I take what I’m given and palm that little white pill, slipping it up my sleeve or into my pocket and nobody’s the wiser._

_Mandatory blood tests tell them everything I want them to know: a perfect score every time showing exactly what they think I’m getting, while Mr Greg Thompson takes the heat for what’s really pumping through my veins. But that doesn’t matter because there is no Greg Thompson. He exists purely as a folder nobody checks, a repository for the garbage I don’t want them to see, helping me maintain the illusion I need to project to get through my time here._

A quick glance at the door. There was nothing to see beyond the security glass of the observation window.

_Nights are the worst, when it’s quiet enough to hear all the thoughts that go ignored when I’m surrounded by the relentless noise of daily life cooped up shoulder to shoulder with dozens of crazy people._

The pill turned to dust beneath the book's spine, smudging the leather with white powder. Elliot wiped it clean, then ran his finger over his gums. He couldn't afford to waste any.

_It’s the time I look forward to the most._

A piece of card made two painfully thin lines on the desk. It wasn't much, but it would have to do. He couldn't get greedy and draw attention to himself. That's how stupid people got caught. Besides, he wanted to stay in control.

_There’s a big difference between being lonely and being alone, but right now I’m both._

He leaned down with the rolled up scrap of paper in hand and chased his way along the line. Familiar bitterness hit the back of his throat.

_There it is…_

He sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, swallowing as he leaned back in the chair, limbs loosening, relaxing just enough to half close his eyes.

\--

_Every day is the same._

_There is no internal hierarchy to this place. No structure to claw one’s way to the pinnacle of. Crawling over the failures of others, or simply turning their own blatant ignorance of the ways of this modern era against them before they can even comprehend that they’ve been…..how do you say it in English? They’ve been ‘had’, so to speak._

_No, behind these walls there is merely one division. Regardless of how banal those who wear poorly laundered uniforms, and ‘Hi, my name is _____’ stapled to their chests. Some of them revel in it under a thin veneer of supposed authority. The prospect of coming out on top, even if it’s in a struggle against those without the means, nor even the capacity to defend themselves. The weak, the ill-mannered, those plain old crazies. In here everyone is slopped into the same basin, tarred with the very same stigmatized brush._

_The line is towed by most out of a collective kind of farmyard compliance. Good behaviour rewards like pats upon the head of an obedient child. Only they come in the form of the most basic necessities with which order can be maintained; food, water, cleanliness, pills. Tired-eyed nurses, and orderlies whose towering bulk seems to itch for a stirring of violence are a testament to how much one side craves peace, whilst the other seeks out any defiance of the listless status quo._

_I’ve read the files. Not all of them, since the majority of the ‘patients’ aren’t worth a second glance. Just enough to know who to steer clear of, if I value my limbs, and more importantly, my time. Each diagnosis reads like a textbook, a dissertation of the most predictably psychopathies one can imagine. Whispers on the wind, aliens who’ve spirited them away for all manner of sordid medical procedures (which are probably down to a mother who drank too much, and a daddy whose hands roamed a little too close to home), ranting about imaginary this, and fictitious that. Pointless maladies, for pointless people._

_There’s no internal hierarchy here, but a little self-awareness wouldn’t go amiss. Measurement. The same kind which allows one to conduct a flawless presentation of facts and figures to the kind of porcine neanderthals who’ll be jerking each other off come the next quarter about just how fucking savvy they’ve been. How much money funds mid-life crisis sports cars and supermodels. Measurement in all things is what allows the simple privileges afforded to those who are confined to a single ward to grow in their scope. To aid some form of development even from behind figurative bars, so that daily life doesn’t feel quite so much like the literal penitentiary which almost was, hasn’t become a reality._

_It doesn’t hurt that they’re un-nerved. That slight distance between professional courtesy, and personal disturbance. A look which holds their own a few seconds more than would be considered ‘normal.’ A silence which rehearsed politeness can’t quite drown out. It’s a wonderful feeling, knowing that whilst they’re looking away from someone who seems to skirt the boundaries between two worlds, all manner of deeds go un-noticed. Feels almost like control all over again._

_Almost._

\--

“That stuff will kill you. Then again, I don’t suppose you’re quite so ignorant not to have your own procedures, are you.” 

_Doors without locks are a blessing._

So was the faint malaise the man sitting before him seemed to wallow in whenever he got his fix. Even now he was slow to rouse, startled, but lacking the ambition in his limbs to do anything about it. A hand raised between them signalled, no, no, please not upon my account, as Tyrell let himself in and found a spot to perch upon the arm of a somewhat patchwork anointed sofa which took a good portion of the room.

The voice was unexpected, and Elliot looked over at his uninvited guest through the dim light. A trace of guilt flashed in tired eyes before they softened, glazing over before they evened out with unnatural calm. He was starting to feel it: light and heavy all at once. Just a little numb, but still aware and in control.

He knew Tyrell as well as Elliot knew most people. He'd seen the news, heard the rumours, and looked into his background as much as one could with such limited reach within these walls. They'd even spoken more than once. Awkward, fragmented sentences at first, gradually becoming easier to string together over time. But still, he wasn't ready for conversation. He hadn't had time to prepare small talk - that dull yet seemingly impossible chore that came to others so naturally yet somehow eluded him.

His gaze drifted back to the desk and the white line lit by the meagre lamp.

This wasn’t part of it. 2.45 a.m. like clockwork, when the lights had long gone out. One line to soften the edges, another to help him forget about the edges altogether. This was _his_ time, _his_ schedule. Another person had never factored into it.

Would Tyrell tell anyone? He doubted it, but the thought of this neat routine - the one thing that helped make this all just a little more bearable - going up in smoke wasn't something he wanted to risk.

He sniffed, looking away as he wiped his nose again, shoulders twitching momentarily as a shiver ran down his spine.

Then again, as the seconds ticked on, he was starting not to worry about it quite so much.

His features shifted between glimpses of lethargy and quiet curiosity as his attention returned to Tyrell. Mild irritation was there somewhere amid the fog, born of a need denied, but it didn't reach the surface. He went to speak then sniffed again. It took a while before he realised he wasn't the only one in the wrong.

“You're not supposed to be in here,” he managed. “What do you want?”

Tyrell chuckled, pitching his own amusement somewhere between polite boardroom necessity, and avoiding the attention of the lax patrols he’d so easily bypassed in the first place. Not quite a habit, but it paid to remain upon the side of caution even when doing something which most definitely crossed the line into punishable territory. 

“I suppose I could lecture you upon the hypocrisy of that particular statement, _Elliot_ ,” The use of his given name provoked further leanings towards something approaching irritation, but tact overcame any mention his unwanted visitor might’ve made of it. Antagonising the other didn’t carry the same penalties as it did when he tangled up the empty heads of those working security, or charmed witless nurses into making exploitable mistakes. A needle to the arm, a concussion, a day spent in solitary for being in possession of an ounce of intelligence in a place filled with broken minds. None of those would be forthcoming. 

“....besides why do I need a reason to visit the only other person on this floor who is capable of holding something akin to a conversation?” The ‘even if you’re high as a kite’ remained unspoken everywhere except for the continued amusement sculpted in his eyes by the wan lamp light which bathed the room. 

Maybe it was too much to hope for more than a mumbled dismissal, or attrition which left them saying a whole lot of nothing to each other. However, he remained sat in orderly repose upon the arm of the sofa with those same startlingly blue eyes trained upon where Elliot tried to string together the last few minutes. 

He had a way with words, that much had been obvious from the first time Tyrell acknowledged his existence. Easily found, deliberately placed words that only emphasised Elliot's own shortcomings in that regard. Elliot's mouth twitched at the corner, perhaps in amusement, he wasn't sure. Maybe it was something else.

The morphine was both a help and a hindrance - reducing his focus whilst oiling the gears that let him converse more freely - as he went to speak again.

“It's late,” he said, pointing out the obvious, but meaning much more than that. The timing of Tyrell's visit was too coincidental. There had been ample opportunity all day for him to seek him out, and yet he'd waited till now, when there was risk involved, when he was breaking the rules.

He knew. He somehow knew he'd still be up.

Elliot glanced at the desk then over to the door and the small window cut into it.

“How… long have you been watching me?”

It wasn't an accusation, just a question, matter-of-fact and said with the slightest of slurs.  
The hours between the first rounds, when the nurses would often find the rooms of those surrounding him in disarray, stinking of their own careless excrement, or overturned in fits of senselessness, and lights out were for perfecting a return to the same normalcy which had dictated his rise to senior vice president of technology at what was arguably the world’s most progressive (and invasive) corporation. A sheen of good taste, diplomacy, and just enough subtle kowtowing to play right into the overfed narcissism of his ‘superiors’. 

That, and using the very same privileges said normality had afforded him to stave off the rotten mindset of everyone else who’d been left for dead in this poor excuse for a place of healing. Just as Elliot had so obviously (to anyone who actually had half a brain) gamed the system to orchestrate his own dosages, ways and means weren’t something which eluded the man watching him with some form of expectation in a room which smelled of stale vomit, old tears, and the disinfectant tang which tried to mask them. 

He smiled. Slow and warm right up to the eyes. She’d seen through it from the day they met. Knew all his dirty little secrets, and pooled them with her own whilst it suited them. The kind of face he used to weather it all. Day in. Day out. Financial quarter by---

“What do you want me to say, Elliot? Long enough to know precisely what scrips you’ve been filing for a certain Mister Thompson. To watch you make a mess of the spines of several of the most underrated works of non-fiction written during the last fifty years, which our excuse for a library stocks.”

Laughter. Louder this time, and a little less incidental than he might have meant it to sound. 

“There are only so many hours in the day, and I am afraid to say that not all of mine are reserved for the process of watching you.”

A pause. He still kept his nails trimmed down to the quick. Neatly refined for more than appearances sake. Even if those particular outlets for all the things which crawled beneath his skin were closed off to him now. Tyrell buffed them against the leg of his trousers, as if the garments were still tailored at Saint. Laurie instead of made from cheap cotton which made his skin feel as if it were coming up in hives.

Yes, he knew. More than he'd anticipated. Strangely that didn't completely surprise him. Disappoint him, maybe. He'd been careful. Cautious. But he'd slipped up somewhere. The meds. They'd dulled him, made him careless.

Or maybe Tyrell was simply smarter than the rest of them.

Anxious fingers played with the rolled up paper still loosely held within their grasp, tapping it against the table with unvoiced impatience. One line wasn't enough, but he wouldn't let himself get to that point, not now he had company. His words were lazy and if he still felt any inkling of surprise, it didn't register in his features. “So you know.”

Elliot ran his fingers through his hair, almost losing himself to the motion till a long deep breath helped him surface again. With some effort, he turned his chair away from the distraction to face Tyrell. Judging by the way the other man was sitting, he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon and, if he was honest, Elliot had lost the inclination to ask him to leave.

_There's a big difference between being lonely and being alone…_

“...What else do you do?” His eyes closed for a long moment before fluttering open in a series of blinks. “When you're not watching me?”

A measure of respite came as Tyrell inspected his nails as if he were checking for imperfections in some high end beauticians. Somewhere where the help fellated everyone to whom the stench of money clung. Who took instead of allowed themselves to be taken by the very city to who they all owed too much.

Mirth made itself known in the back of his throat, a more genuine expletive than he’d ever offered up during orchestrated conversations with the nurse upon call. He barely acknowledged the existence of their fellow patients at the best of times. A serene presence upon the fringes of their anxieties, passions, and melodramatics. Present, but removed from the vortex association wrought upon his own projected personality. 

“What would you have me say? That I think of you. That I’m plotting some wild escape plan only the two of us can scavenge together between ourselves.”

This time it went beyond the careful arrangement of well arranged, vaguely European good looks. A quirk of his lips which whilst thoroughly intentional, communicated something more than the end product of weeks of rehearsal. 

“At first I couldn’t accept the reality of it all. Being cooped up in here with bedwetters, and lunatics. Up close and personal with a decaying bunch of minds whose owners probably never had a productive day in their whole lives.”

She’d seen to it that every little detail of his life had been filed away in airtight containers during the aftermath. As if it only existed as a dusty set of anecdotes for the upper echelons of the corporate world to muse over once every few years. Funny how she’d been so awfully efficient when she wanted to be. So much colder than he’d assumed even he was. Ready to slide effortlessly into the next stage of her own flawless existence. All trappings of perversion as well hidden as the presence of her only mistake. 

“A whole lot of time wasted on regrets, Elliot. You and I might belong to this place. However, that doesn’t mean it deserves us.” 

He liked to talk. The words rolled off his tongue so easily: each stress and faintly lilting word made silky by the anodyne singing soft and sweetly through a tired mind. Luckily, Elliot liked to listen. To observe, preferably from somewhere unseen as he dug up secrets and peered in at lives so different from his own, so seemingly normal on the surface yet only masks for clandestine urges and alter egos carried along by the undertow. He skimmed the other man’s words and caught the gist. There was a lot of ‘us’ and ‘Elliot’ placed casually and overly familiar in Tyrell’s sentences, perhaps intended to be ignored or not consciously placed at all, but each one stuck out and was circled in yellow with a mental marker pen.

“You talk a lot…” the words came out in tandem with the thought, and if Elliot was inclined to apologise for his bluntness, he didn’t.

_I guess one of us has to._

Slowly, the words sank in, eventually registering through the haze. Belong here? He began to protest internally, but it was a fleeting thought. They both knew it was true. A doctor’s diagnosis wasn’t required to come to that conclusion.

He held the paper unconsciously between his fingers like a cigarette while he mulled that over, struggling at times not to disappear off on a numb tangent. There was no arrogance behind the shared thought that they were different from the others locked up in their pens. It was a fact he’d known but never voiced. But Tyrell had done that for him. He didn’t know how, or why, but he felt it too.

Or maybe it was the drugs talking.

“What makes us so special?” Elliot wore a ghost of a smile as his head lolled to one side, green eyes meeting Tyrell’s own with less hesitation than they normally might.

The full weight of Tyrell’s gaze was something lesser men usually found unbearable. He was acutely aware of how words could tie others up in knots, bind them with unshirkable logic, or simply confuse dull minds so completely that they’d agree to just about anything if persuaded it was their novel scheme in the first place. However, a solitary look communicated so much more, and coupled with the eloquence Elliot had noted, even in his strung out state, he’d been seemingly unstoppable. 

At first he’d blamed those small-minded suits who made up the board of directors. Men driven by luxury and wealth to the point where they might as well have been wearing blinders. Some possessed a level of cunning which came as a mild surprise, but the majority had slithered their way to the top of so-called society via the foundations of the men in their families who’d come before them. A web of convenient links he himself had not been blessed with. 

No, each tether which bound him closer to the next ledge, the next rung upon a ladder both invisible and tangible enough to grasp in his most heated moments. They’d been forged out of the will to take, and the strength to cement his hold upon each and every one. 

It had been easier later on, when calculated liaisons (which she neither cared about, nor hid her knowledge of), and blowing off steam had any number of clandestine outlets. Losing himself in the eager body of some faceless one night stand who knew neither his real name, nor his standing. Or the satisfying crunch of boot against bone, knuckle against sun-worn skin beneath an underpass which stank of piss and old vomit. It was manageable. Under control. 

Losing track of himself had come later. He’d gotten reckless in his need to ascend, and the meticulous demands she’d made for their years ahead. How everything would slot together so perfectly. A beautiful, poised wife. A healthy, well-educated child. A home which reflected their position without becoming gaudy like so many of those owned by his peers. 

Money. Status. Control. 

Doors closed, leaving him to stagnate unless he took what was rightfully his. And in that taking, the lines between efficiency, ambition, and a blind sort of rage had been left so far behind even now some of the events surrounding his downfall remained distant and ill-defined. 

“Trajectory.” Their eyes remained bound, and Elliot listened as attentively as he’d always done. Drugs and all. “Where do you honestly think they’re going to be in a year, five years, ten, from now?”

With a grace unbefitting sweatpants, and cheap cotton, Tyrell pushed away from the arm of the sofa. The incline of his captive audience’s body implied so many things, but rather than looming over him where he was seated, a crouch was where the other man relocated himself, one hand presumptuous upon Elliot’s thigh. Secure in the knowledge that his rules didn’t extend to the two of them. Not like this. Not now. 

“We have choices, you and I. To rant and rave and defecate upon themselves is all these people know. They’ll never amount to more than the sum of their damaged parts, but you….you have an awareness of what makes you broken.” 

He didn’t like to be touched without his say so, but Elliot didn’t flinch. Tyrell’s words hit a nerve - felt acutely despite his softened mind - and kicked his brain back into gear.

_Broken._

Everyone here was broken, himself included. He knew it and had come to accept it, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. Internal conflict - spawned from self-imposed isolation and craving the ability to fit in, to learn not to shy away from the human race and simply function - ate him up most days. He was so far removed from society - that gormless cesspool of greed, banality and blind obedience - that being part of it wasn’t even an option anymore. He wanted it and he hated it all at once, and those two conflicting gears ground together, working against each other to leave him with a box of broken parts he didn’t know how to fix.

_He’s right. Again._

Green eyes grew distant, moving to watch sights unseen as Elliot lost himself in a haze of nothing, punctuated by troubling thoughts.

_No… he isn’t like the others._

The hand on his thigh brought him back to the room, grounding not only his body, but his wandering mind. Their eyes met again, and Elliot scratched at his neck with blunt nails while he bunched and flexed sock-clad toes, the awkwardness of the gestures softened by sluggishness.

_Is this what a connection feels like? it’s been so long I don’t know anymore._

“There aren’t many choices in here...”

_That’s why I take stolen morphine in the middle of the night like a junkie and spend my days counting down the time till I can be back here again._

“...even for us.”

Patience had been neither his, nor his wife’s strong suit in the end. She’d craved results just as much as he desired progress, and it’d been that lack of patience which contributed to the undoing of everything he’d worked towards. Severed ties clung to his wrists like red ribbons, but since Elliot had begun to stand out amongst the brain slack, pill-fuelled masses that inhabited these halls they’d fallen away one, by one, by one. 

_Keep him present. Eyes on you. Mind on your voice. Precisely where he should be._

“Are you happy, Elliot?” 

It was a simple question. One which he’d most likely heard spewing from the mouths of trained professionals since he was first deemed to exist outside the spectrum of _normal_ people. After the first time he uttered words to thin air, or bunched himself into corners so that he could weep away whatever hours remained in the day. These nocturnal visits had afforded him the sight of it all. Every sordid detail of the pieces Elliot pushed back into place whether it was through some kind of conscious effort _not_ to stand out, or with the aid of things which came straight out of a bottle. Knowing him wasn’t a case of holding banal conversations, or digging through the thick wad of paper inside his file. (Although he’d engaged in the latter to sate a small itch of curiosity which wouldn’t quite go away). 

No, to know Elliot Alderson was to see him from all the perspectives that he himself could claim as sanity still afforded him. To observe his lowest ebb. To touch. To understand in ways only men of complexity could know each other. 

His answer would be a small prize, and something to dictate, or be dictated by no matter how it emerged. 

_What is this?_

Tyrell’s question was unexpected and horribly familiar. So much of Elliot’s time was spent looking outwards - observing the lives of others - that such a probing, direct question had him looking in a mirror and itching for a way out.

_Is that why I watch them? So I don’t have to think about myself?_

He moved uncomfortably in his seat, his thigh rubbing against the hand upon it. Curled fingers brushed against dry lips, held pensively in place.

_Am I happy?_

He wanted that line. He was only halfway gone with another half to go, and the end seemed so far away. 

_What else does he know?_

He wanted that pleasant white vignette and the floating sinking feeling that helped him forget himself for a while.

_I want to switch it off. I don’t want to think._

_This isn’t part of it._

And yet, he couldn’t with Tyrell looking up at him. Something in his eyes wouldn’t let him leave.

_Are you happy?_

“No,” he murmured softly, and the thoughts fell quiet. Elliot exhaled relief, eyes closing in the wake of the admission. When he finally opened them again, it was with a question on his lips, “Why do you care?”

“A person needs goals. Even, no perhaps especially in a place like this. I’m not talking about remembering not to shit one’s bed, or coloring between the lines during _art_ class.” A particular note of disdain overcame his tone, but he brushed it aside along with the rather rueful smile which was directed up towards where Elliot was studying him. Head to the very tips of his toes, because getting away from analysing himself was something he’d learned the other man was rather adept at when he wanted to be. 

A skill, he was regretfully aware of almost being in possession of in the weeks leading up to the end. 

_This isn’t about your shortcomings. Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP._

The fingers upon Elliot’s thigh constricted, his gaze meandering to some distant shore for a moment before he did everything save visibly chastising himself to drag it back to the port of their conversation. 

“I heard you.” 

They’d all heard him at some time or another. It was a little difficult to avoid a running commentary when it came in the form of hallucinations which ventured to the fore time and again. Medication be damned. Whilst Elliot’s own brand of theatrics was small, almost self-contained, hidden as his own was behind closed doors, it dribbled out in fits and starts between regime changes and altered doses. To him, it drowned out all the squawking madness which filled the air of the common spaces in this aimless place. 

“I care because I heard you.” As if that explained everything he used the weak bolster of Elliot’s thigh to push up from the ground. Reflexes dulled by doctored prescriptions, and lethargy, and lack of whatever it was which had kept Elliot vital, if only partially alive, during his time upon the outside allowed him to spirit away the paper from idle fingers. 

And without asking for the permission he didn’t need he took one of those choices away. Made it his own in a rush of white powder and deliberate acts. It had been a while, long enough for the heady after burn to send him right back to where he’d been crouching, head tipped back and eyes blinking at the sight of another plain before he crumpled the scrap of paper and tossed it into the waste bin beside Elliot’s favorite spot. 

A knot tightened in Elliot's gut then loosened of its own accord. That option was gone now, taken away before he'd even recognised the desire to protest stirring inside him. Looking down at the man crouched before him, he saw the beginnings of that seemingly meagre dose of numbness affecting his features and recognised the signs he'd seen in the mirror long ago before he forced himself to stop looking. That knowledge, known only to those who had travelled down this road, parted his lips with quiet anticipation. Elliot watched him, living vicariously through the other man as Tyrell's shoulders sagged just a touch. He could almost feel it again: that first hit of something warm and new and not quite real creeping up from the base of his spine, emanating warmth that fanned out from between his shoulder blades. 

_Watching from the outside is nearly the same… but it's not enough._

Wetting his finger, he turned just enough to regard the desk before running his fingertip across it several times, gathering up anything they might have missed, but they'd been thorough. Turning away, a trace of modesty dictating the movement, his finger returned to his mouth, pushing firm along his gums. 

_This wasn't part of it._

No, it wasn't…. But maybe it could be.

_Why is he doing this?_

Leaning back in his chair, Elliot's hand fell to his side.

_He heard me?_

_What does that mean?_

A warm, deep breath in.

_What does any of this mean?_

The exhale blew the questions away and for a moment he was only aware of his own slow, steady breathing and the presence of the man before him, who had finally met his gaze again. It took some effort to focus and his voice was little more than a murmur when he spoke. “Is that... better?”

This hardly marked his first time at this particular rodeo. Snorting blow off of ten thousand dollar marble countertops, and five thousand dollar women was practically a necessity of social graces in the lower echelons of corporate society. A way in which good old boys slapped each other on the back. Hearty congratulations for having enough money to waste it upon such trivialities. He’d indulged, but in just enough moderation that it would play into that circle jerk without becoming the kind of issue which delayed raises, and axed off promotions. 

_Control. In the end always control. Assess. Address. Control._

Of course Elliot was smart enough to know what was the _good stuff_. As good as one could get in a place like this, but clean, factory tested, mass produced, not cut with rat poison or talcum powder. The good shit. It didn’t so much as course through him as slowly diffuse into each limb until his whole body felt just that little bit looser, and he broke the surface to realize he’d been leaning against Elliot’s thigh, his forehead almost prostrated upon it in the moments after their eyes met once again. 

Laughter tip toed out against the same regulation fabric which covered his own legs, soft gusts until he swallowed it down. Until he straightened up, and smiled the kind of way only the freedom of medicated relaxation, and being in the presence of someone who was just as fucked up as he’d ever be would allow. Un-naturally warm for someone whose own spouse had described him as a wet _wet_ little blanket. 

_For which one of us?_

“Different, not entirely better or worse. But…” It was with this that his hand, the other one, the one which hadn’t been occupied with keeping him steady despite his prone position upon the floor, travelled through the small space between them. A junkie with the tendencies of a genius, who didn’t even realize how his back was curved, his whole body inclined towards the questions his mind couldn’t quite clutch at. It didn’t take much to find the line of his jaw. To take that opportunity. To know him from another perspective. One which would remain memorized upon his fingertips for days to come. 

“....I need you lucid if any of this is going to work.” 

His cheek weighed heavily against the hand against it as Elliot swallowed, still tasting traces of the bitterness the chalky white powder had left behind. He pressed his bottom lip lightly between his teeth and ran his tongue along it, unseen, before his lips parted and a slow, quiet sigh of relaxation escaped him.

_This is why I do this alone._

His guard was down. A voice in the background was warning him as much, but with that peaceful hum dulling his senses, he wasn't sure what to do about it.

Lucid. Yes, he was just about lucid. For now.

“If what...”

His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere else. He reined it back in, blinking with a loud sniff as he focused on the other man's face and removed himself from his touch.

“... if what’s going to work?”

In silent concurrence, Tyrell’s fingers withdrew, leaving them both bereft of any form of physical connection save for the same stale air they’d keep on breathing. Together. He sat back upon his heels, but seemingly not because he had no faith in his legs to bear him yet, and regarded Elliot in much the same way one would observe an unfolding tragedy. 

“This is why putting that stuff up your nose is no good for you, Elliot. Makes you slow, makes you sloppy. That’s not who you are, and we both know this.” Another rueful smile, another sigh tinged with the most anaemic hint of frustration. After all, his baser instincts weren’t for Elliot. Nor were they useful, not even when they prowled untamed, and reckless through his veins. A narcotic one couldn’t be tested for, and had no need to procure off of the backs of jumped up little shits from the city. 

“Our great escape, of course. Not that I intend for it to be great, or grand, or even noticeable. As long as it ends in open doors, and the world at our feet once more. Goals, Elliot. Always goals, and if you don’t want to rot away like all the others, then this should be yours.” 

It took a moment to process it all and Elliot's eyes traced the lines of the other man's face all the while. Eventually the gravity of what Tyrell had said slowly began to sink in. Straightening up with a loud inhale, Elliot found his voice and was surprised by how coherent he sounded. To himself, at least.

“You don't think I've thought about it?”

_It's all I used to think about._

He met Tyrell's gaze with a strange authority, considering the circumstances. “I've exhausted every option. Without the right kit, the right tools…”

_I'm as useless as everybody else._

“... I can't help you.”

But he'd sounded sure of himself, like he had a plan. Elliot swallowed again and scratched idly at his arm. Tyrell Wellick seemed like the kind of man who had a plan for everything.

That laughter which he’d been so adept at cramming back down his throat before overflowed to color the walls around them. It was short-lived, restrained only behind the back of one surprisingly steady hand, until it tapered off into a somewhat polite little cough. 

In the wake of it, Tyrell’s accent was a little more pronounced, a little less rounded down to serve the needs of a board room full of idiots who’d never bothered to learn more than their mother tongue. There were people to translate, to interpret, to design every other aspect of their lives, so why not language as well. 

“Forgive me.” Another cough, and then he was moving again to perch right back where he’d been before invading Elliot’s privacy to snort his fix right out from underneath him, and put a whole landscape of ideas into that mixed up head of his. 

“So, you’ve resigned yourself to a life of daytime television, and sippy cups? How….quaint.” Still smiling, a little more judiciously by now, the Swede shifted as if it was now his intention to leave Elliot to his own devices. Perhaps upon a more permanent basis. 

“Bonsoir, Elliot.” 

_He's going. You’ll be alone. This is what you wanted._

But it didn't exactly feel like it was what Elliot wanted anymore. Not when talk of something greater than this petty excuse for an existence was more than just impossible frustrated musings in his head. 

_Escape. I need to be somewhere bigger than this. It's something I've always known but haven't had the means to realise._

It was difficult to be intrigued or be much of anything when he was like this, and yet he was. He could deny a lot of the thoughts slowly crawling through his mind, but not that.

_Not alone._

Tyrell had nearly reached the door when the simple word left his mouth, though it didn't stop the other man's progress. Not at first.

“Wait.”

_What are you going to do?_

He didn't want this anymore. He didn't want to live day to day, stealing a few hours of blank nothing and wake up every morning only to return to the same day over and over and over...

Elliot's head felt heavy, his mouth loose, but his voice was surprisingly level. “What do you have in mind?”

**Author's Note:**

> Another old RP log, written before season 2 even aired. I wrote Elliot and my partner wrote Tyrell (because apparently I can only RP characters played by Rami Malek with mental issues). No plan to continue this, but it's something a little different from my usual stuff (sort of...)!
> 
> Tumblr: @messofcurls-creative


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